Soviet Lunapark VR was released without the consent of the team
Initially, the management wanted to make Atomic Heart a VR game. This is evidenced by the early vacancies at Mundfish and the recruitment of people by Oleg for the "VR project on UE4". Further, according to the interlocutors, the project became a first-person shooter, but then again a VR game with a planned release for PSVR in December 2017. The management saw that the quality was not up to par, and, according to the interlocutors, the CEO (Robert) wanted to see a profit. But nothing worked.
It was then, at the end of 2017, according to the interlocutors, that the project was frozen for the first time.
After a short time, as the interlocutors note, in order to make a profit, it was decided to make a VR project based on existing assets. This is how the Soviet Lunapark appeared. It is also noted that the main problem of the game is not its closure, but the fact that it was released in Early Access, and promised a lot of features. One of these features is the story campaign. The promises, of course, were not kept.
The development was closed in early access. As noted by sources, due to the low profit of the project. Through
SteamDB, you can check that the Early Access tags were really there. They were removed from the game on July 23, 2018.
Parallel to this, there is a story from other interlocutors. At that moment (the moment of the release of Soviet Lunapark), it was planned to refine the game for another 2 months: add features, fix bugs and polish it for release on Steam.
The CEO (Robert) and the producer (Oleg) released the game on Steam without saying anything to the team. The developers found out about this by accident - when they saw an already published project.
The interlocutors ask to note the main thing that they want to convey:
the game was sold as a beta version with many promises, but it failed to get out of the beta and it was closed prematurely, after some time it was sold to a third party - District Zero. The sale was not included in the original plans.
In the summer of 2018, according to the developers, the Mundfish VR department was closed, and in September the
District Zero website appeared, their office is located 15 minutes walk from the Mundfish office.
There is such an interesting quote in RBC materials:
Mundfish has already managed to sell a small side project, the VR game Soviet Lunapark, which tested VR technology using some Atomic Heart materials. In 2017, the project was sold for several tens of millions of rubles to the Russian company District Zero, a VR amusement park.
And now attention: work on the Soviet Lunapark VR project was carried out by Mundfish at least until the summer of 2018. This is confirmed by all interlocutors. In 2017, there was no project ready for sale. Is Robert just showing off? Maybe.
The District Zero website was registered on September 29, 2017, and opened, as I said, in September 2018.
The District Zero domain is registered to the Dutch company
Minerva VR Group BV. The company was registered only on May 28, 2018. It was recorded in the name of a certain Nikolai Valerievich Volkov. On the company's website, you can buy tickets to the VR arena.
Even in the news on Steam, despite the fact that the developer of the game is still the Mundfish studio, there is a link to District Zero.
You can still visit the free move VR Arcade version of the Soviet Luna Park in Moscow. See details here:
https://district0.com/ . In 2019 free move VR Arcade version will be available in all major cities around the world, that is London, Berlin, Los Angeles, New York and others.
But what is the bottom line? Already on March 1, 2019, all Soviet Lunapark VR servers will be closed. That is, those who bought the game will no longer be able to play it.
Do you know how long Mundfish ended up supporting the VR project after release? Exactly 221 days.
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